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Ideas worth spreading

The recent TED sponsored talks in New Delhi inspire this post on the organization and its work. As most of you will know by now, TED is a small nonprofit with essentially evangelical zeal, devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

Last month in Delhi TEDx organized a day of talks at the India Habitat Centre. Among the noteworthy speakers there- and a friend of SwB was an invitee- were Naman Ahuja, Associate Professor in the School of Arts and Aesthetics at JNU and Shabnam Virmani, documentary film maker extraordinaire whose Kabir Project is cutting edge in every sense of the words.

But the talk that drew me to the site in the first place was by an unusual icon, Bill Gates, who has emerged as one of the most significant philanthropists- and a self declared (and perhaps accidental) optimist. He spoke last year on Mosquitos, malaria and education with both passion and charm. And persuasion. Among the many things he said- in a disarmingly simple manner, one struck a very responsive chord in my own thinking.